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Simon Griffiths

Simon left the employee of SYSPRO at the end of March 2015. With over 20 years in enterprise IT, he has worked in programming, database management, project management, consulting, marketing and sales. In his role at SYSPRO, Simon assisted in providing the SYSPRO offices with product and sales support.

Should an ERP system be customized? That is a question asked by many companies. Although some people say it should never be done, in almost every ERP project one of the first user requests is for customization.

If you accept that customization is a fact of ERP life, then what criteria should the project owner use to select and prioritize customizations? One objective framework for deciding on customization has been provided by consultant and author Geoffrey Moore. In his book ‘Dealing with Darwin’ Moore proposed the concept of 'core' and 'context' as a way to prioritize growth strategies, but the concept can also be extended to ERP customization.

According to research by the Aberdeen Group, one of the top pressures is unpredictable demand , another pressure is reducing inventory carrying costs . How are business leaders addressing these pressures? By building capacity for better demand and inventory planning and forecasting.

Have you ever thought how mobile devices are transforming your personal life, and those around you? Now, think about how you might change your work life as dramatically, and then ask yourself "why haven't we gone mobile?" Many companies are still hesitating to implement mobile solutions in the warehouse or the factory floor, even though their CEOs and managers are quite comfortable using smartphones. It's probably because it is a new journey and they are unsure of the steps and decisions they need to take along the way.

We are living in a world of change and uncertainty. In 2014, Harvard Business Review published research that showed that uncertainty has increased in the last 50 years, and that some industries are more affected by it. Of the top ten industries facing the most uncertainty, eight are manufacturing industries.

There is a military term now used by business to characterize the challenges of change - VUCA - which was discussed in a previous blog post. VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. Another acronym (also originating from the military) provides guidance on how to deal with a VUCA world.

In my days as an ERP sales consultant, I had first-hand experience on how customers went about selecting and implementing ERP software. Here are some suggestions based on seeing projects that failed and succeeded, and how the successful ones started.

In the dim distant past of ERP, 10 years ago and more, the way you learnt about the software was by referring to the training manuals relating to various modules – Accounts Payable, Bill of Materials, etc. It was a very product-oriented and narrow view of learning. Times have changed, fortunately, and learning materials are turning towards how people work – their roles – and the business processes involved.

As the CFO of an organization, your responsibility is to ensure efficient and effective financial operations and records, and influence overall strategy. An ERP is the foundation of the operations of a business. For a CFO, it enables you to track and report on all business transactions, analyse information, ensure governance and compliance, and increasingly do this via mobile devices. Therefore, you need to be very sure your ERP project will deliver what the business requires, and also what was promised.

What do ERP project really cost? A well-known study in 2002 by the Meta Group (since acquired by Gartner) is probably now too old to be a really useful benchmark. A slightly later study, in 2007, by Aberdeen Group made the 'remarkable' finding that costs go up as the number of users go up.